Category Archives: Zen

Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism, Stories, Writing, Zen

Masterpiece and Spontaneity. A Zen Story.

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Masterpiece and Spontaneity

A master calligrapher was writing some characters onto a piece of paper. One of his especially perceptive students was watching him. When the calligrapher was finished, he asked for the student’s opinion – who immediately told him that it wasn’t any good. The master tried again, but the student criticized the work again.

Over and over, the calligrapher carefully redrew the same characters, and each time the student rejected it. Finally, when the student had turned his attention away to something else and wasn’t watching, the master seized the opportunity to quickly dash off the characters. “There! How’s that?,” he asked the student. The student turned to look. “THAT…. is a masterpiece!” he exclaimed.

Meanings: “Originality is what makes each of us a masterpiece. Don’t stick to the same old way of doing things.”

“Stop thinking and just do what’s natural for you, instead of what’s expected. Some of our best work is done when we least expect it.”

“You can’t perform perfectly under the watch of critical eyes. When you don’t force perfection, it happens by itself, spontaneously. Great things happen when you least suspect it.”

“Whenever you watch over someone you make them self-conscious and uncreative. It’s like trying to teach a child. If you let them alone they will usually figure it out themselves and it will be great.” – See

Source: Masterpiece and Spontaneity. A zen story.

Art, Buddhism, Love, Poetry, Writing, Zen

The Burden; A Zen Story

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Two monks were returning to the monastery in the evening. It had rained and there were puddles of water on the road sides. At one place a beautiful young woman was standing unable to walk across because of a puddle of water. The elder of the two monks went up to a her lifted her and left her on the other side of the road, and continued his way to the monastery.

In the evening the younger monk came to the elder monk and said, “Sir, as monks, we cannot touch a woman ?”

The elder monk answered “yes, brother”.

Then the younger monk asks again, “but then Sir, how is that you lifted that woman on the roadside ?”

The elder monk smiled at him and told him ” I left her on the other side of the road, but you are still carrying her.”

 

-Unknown

Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism, Poetry, Zen

Here and There ; GreatMiddleWay

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Here and There;
Post by Tashi Nyima

 

As a river, when full, must flow

and reach and fill the distant plain,

so what is given here, indeed,

will reach and bless the beings there.

As water on a mountain top

must soon descend and fill the plain,

so what is given here, indeed,

will reach and bless the beings there.

 

—Buddha Shakyamuni, Nidhikanda Sutta, Khuddakapatha

Source: Here and There